


The 2018 Great Comic Relief Bake-Off

by TempestRising



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - The Great British Bake Off Fusion, Baking, Fluff, Getting Back Together, M/M, Slow Burn, Stolen Icing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-03
Updated: 2018-07-15
Packaged: 2019-06-01 19:45:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15150482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TempestRising/pseuds/TempestRising
Summary: Dan and Phil are invited to participate in the Great Comic Relief Bake Off, a two-day version of the full-sized competition. Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood judge them, everyone is pretty sure they're a couple, and Dan and Phil constantly forget they're supposed to be competing against each other. Dan expected all that, but he didn't expect the weekend to bring up old feelings he'd thought he'd put behind him.





	1. Day One

_"I'm very nervous. The fact that it's for Mary and Paul doesn't help because I suspect that they're, frankly, fussy eaters."_

**David Mitchell, Comic Relief Bake Off 2018**

.***.

_Mel and Sue squint in the bright light of an English spring day, smiling as Sue says: “Mel’s brushed off her book of baking puns just to prepare to be back in the tent for you. Today we have four familiar faces here ready to bake their little hearts out –”_

_“Or at least do their very best,” Mel interjects._

_“They’re getting ready to **dough** battle for charity,” Sue winks._

_“Welcome to the Great Comic Relief Bake Off!”_

_V.O. Mel: This time four more celebrities have agreed to flatten, boil, and roll their way through three difficult challenges in front of two tough judges. Only one person can be crowned star baker and win the coveted star baker apron. They’re all doing this to raise cash for Comic Relief, and later on in the program comedian David Mitchell will be in Uganda to see how the money raised really does save lives._

During the voice over are shots of the four contestants. Dan Howell, bent nearly in half as he tries to decorate the piece of some pastry, moaning, “I’m just too bloody tall for this.” Zoe Sugg biting her lip as she smiles, “You know, I swear this morning I thought I knew what I was doing.” Alfred Enoch sitting cross-legged in front of an oven, cup of tea in hand. The clip ends with Phil Lester sitting on the edge of his counter, staring at one of his hands dripping with blood.

_Welcome to the Comic Relief Bake Off._

_V.O. Sue: This week’s Comic Relief bakers are:_

_YouTuber duo Dan Howell and Phil Lester._

A clip of Dan and Phil sitting on a bench, Phil leaning a little too close to a nosy squirrel. “I honestly think we’re both as bad as the other,” Dan says. “But I would really love to just beat Phil.”

“I don’t think they announce any place but first,” Phil points out.

“Yeah, but you know anyway. Even if they don’t say. You know.”

_YouTuber, author, and beauty guru Zoe Sugg._

“I’m actually pretty confident. I mean, I bake for my family and friends all the time. It’s just Paul Hollywood that’s intimidating, really.”

_And Alfred Enoch, best known for his role as Dean Thomas in the Harry Potter franchise._

“Well my mom is from Barbados, so I sort of grew up with a lot of island-inspired foods, but I can’t say I’ve ever baked a cake.” He rubs the back of his neck, smiling self-consciously. “I mean, I surely must have baked something, once, but I honestly can’t think of anything right now.”

_Mel and Sue walk into the tent, followed by Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood. The camera catches sight of Zoella laughing into the back of her hand. Or perhaps yawning._

_“Here’s a bunch of really nervous people,” Mel declares, smiling warmly. The tent laughs._

_“I’ve got to say, though, you lot have got to be the most attractive group we’ve ever had here. I mean, look at all these young people.” Sue wags a finger at them. “You will all be forty. Some day.”_

_Alfred, who’d shaken hands with Dan and Phil this morning and told them to call him Alfie, rubs the back of his neck again. There’s a permanent red spot there. It’s a habit that neither his mother nor acting could break. Phil glances, for the first but definitely not the last time that day, at Dan, who is already looking at him. Consciences fans will count. Dan and Phil will lock eyes forty-eight times in the one-hour broadcast._

_“So, for your signature challenge, we are asking you to bake us shortbread. Just shortbread, but you will need twenty-four identical biscuits with a little pizazz. Add some decoration, some sugar, some horse hooves. Whatever floats your fancy.” Mel grins at Alfie. Though the four contestants are standing up straight, no one looks particularly nervous. It’s the biggest difference between the regular Bake Off and the charity shows. These contestants have already made their mark. This is just something extra._

_“On your mark…”_

_“Get set…”_

_“Bake!”_

Dan’s happy to start. It’s cool inside the tent despite the ovens warming all around him. Though it’s only the first challenge it’s already nearly noon. He remembered the hurry-up-and-wait from the Radio Show days, from the tour. The frantic checking of mics and hair. And then…nothing.

He’d been sure to talk to Alfie, who is easy on the eyes and good at the small talk these kinds of things necessitate. The actor had mentioned that he felt the odd man out, the only one not in the YouTuber world, but they’d quickly talked about other things. Dan had learned on tour that everyone had an airport story, and he had several, so he and Alfie and eventually Phil and Zoe had tea brought to them and were careful not to smudge their stage faces as they talked about traveling and baking and being here on the show and being back in England.

The hours passed slowly, getting the cameras in places, emergency chocolate shortage. Phil nicked a handful of chips and Sue swatted him, softly, on the arm. And Phil gave her half the chocolate. And they were friends.

Sue comes over just as Dan figures out how to switch on the Kitchen Aid. “Gosh you’re tall. Bet you hear that a lot.”

About half of all people Dan meets mentions his height before anything else. Before their name, or hello. “It helps when Phil and I stand next to each other.” He raises his voice. Phil glances over with a little waved.

“Who’s taller?” Sue asks, sizing them up.

“Dan,” Phil calls.

“Yeah, but who’s older?”

“Phil,” Dan says. Then adds, solemnly. “Ancient. Over the hill.”

Sue laughs. Leans forward. There’s a camera about six inches away and Dan tries not to look into it. He knows it’s probably easier for actors, people on television. Avoiding the direct gaze into the camera. He was used to the opposite. Sue tilts her head. “Okay, but here’s the real question. Who’s the better baker?”

Dan looks at Phil, and they do that thing, the thing they could do from the beginning. The timing. The joke. The telepathy. “Zoella,” they say at the same time, sing-song. Zoe, in front, throws some flour at them both.

It takes about twenty minutes to figure out that Zoe is by far the best of them. She’s the calmest, remembers to turn on her oven early enough to let it heat up, doesn’t forget the salt or baking powder. Alfie’s not bad either. Quieter, though when Mel gets around to him for his bit, he’s soft-spoken and charming, self-deprecating, remembering to mention the charity angle of all of this.

Dan and Phil are about the same, in terms of skill. Dan’s more precise but Phil’s quicker, more intuitive. Dan’s doing orange-zest-something that he learned from his mum last weekend, and Phil’s basically making gingerbread shortbread with cinnamon and nutmeg and cloves and fresh ginger.

Finally, Dan gets his bake in the oven and leans back against the counter, rolling out his shoulders. And that’s when Queen Mary Berry herself walks over to him. “Oh Dan,” she says, sounding exactly like his own grandmother. “We’ve been watching you and Phil and Alfie bend over these little counters all morning. I have to stand on my tip-toes.”

“So we’re both at a disadvantage,” Dan looks over to make sure Phil put his cookies in. On the way over, they’d made a list of things they absolutely did not want to happen today. Remember to turn on the oven. Don’t drop anything. Be gracious, and if you’re doing poorly, be funny.

“I heard down the grape line that you and Phil live together,” Paul says. “Must have been a challenge if you both tried to practice your bakes.”

“Oh yeah,” Dan says. “Small London apartment. Smaller than average kitchen. But we managed. We practiced. We’re not hopeless.”

“We’re a little hopeless,” Phil says. “Gordon Ramsey called our meringues…”

“Something you can’t repeat on television,” Dan picks up. He smiles. “I think we’re just competing against each other.”

Mary Berry’s brow is furrowed and she looks over at Phil, who comes over with his own cup. It’s actually coffee. He’s a traitor to his nationality. “But surely it was difficult to work with just one kitchen.”

“We tried to have a system,” Dan assures her. “I was going to bake Tuesdays Thursdays, Phil every other Wednesday. Whoever doesn’t bake does the dishes.”

“It was a disaster.” Phil shrugs. “Pro tip. Don’t live with other Bake Off contestants.”

Paul rests his hand flat on the counter. A power pose. “Really though, one of you must think you’re better than the other.”

“You’re trying to sow discord in their household,” Mary scolds. “Let us be the judges. You two just try your best.”

Dan glances at Phil, eyes wide. “Did our baking sempai just defend us?”

Phil’s already looking back at his station. “I think my icing is a little runny.”

Dan pales. “Icing? What icing?”

Zoe, across the kitchen, laughs. Even Alfie is smiling, large and beautiful. Dan looks at his counter, which is a bit of a wreck. Which of these ingredients even added up to icing? “Goddamnit, Phil. You did this on purpose.”

“Did what on purpose?” Phil rolls his eyes, but bustles over with his icing bowl in hand. “Just go grab a cup of tea, Dan. Deep breaths. We’ve still got forty minutes.”

He doesn’t know how he forgot about the icing. The most important part of any bake was the decoration, but usually he just turned up with his candy supplies already pilfered by Phil and the icing was there, boom, ready for him. “I don’t want tea.”

“Then get me more coffee.”

“Phil, we are literally on television right now.”

Phil smiles. It’s a small, tight, private smile. It meant: don’t worry, I’ll fix this. The same grin Dan received when Phil fiddled with the electronics or ran a new editing program or talked to their accountant. And after a decade Dan learned to trust the smile, the way he learned to trust Phil.

Dan turns away from his empty station, ducking down to check on his shortbread, which is looking good, a nice brown color that’s rising well. “Thicc,” he says to Phil, who shoos him away, not unkindly.

He gets to the small counter just outside the filming area, littered with drinks and cups, and he’s just pouring another coffee when he hears, from behind him: “Phil!”

“Nothing to see here,” Phil says. “Turn around Zoe, you’ll give us away.”

“There’s five cameras about to give you away.”

“Cheating,” Alfie rumbles. “Came all the way to the Great British Bake Off to cheat.”

“Cheating for charity.”

Dan peers back at the tent. Phil is back at his station, tasting his icing (which is a little runny). Zoe’s making flowers and Alfie is making flags and there, on Dan’s station, is a new bowl. Half full of icing that looks suspiciously like—exactly like—the icing in Phil’s bowl. Dan feels himself flush but squares his shoulders and rolls his eyes at Zoe and Alfie who are both sniggering into their bakes. Phil holds up his hand and Dan slaps him a high five.

“You forgot the coffee.”

Dan glances down. Phil had given him more than half of his icing. “Will you have enough?”

Phil shrugs. “I was never going to win on presentation anyway. I’ll do flavors and you make it look pretty.

Mel and Sue sidle up together. “I do think this is fairly blatant cheating,” Sue’s eyes are dancing. Everyone is trying hard to look disapproving and not amused. From across the kitchen, Mary Berry’s grin is blinding.

“I’ll be sure to mess it up on my own.” Dan tries to catch Phil’s eye but his best friend is taking his biscuits out. He’ll say thank you later. He went from looking scatter-brained on television to looking like a scatter-brained guy with a too-kind friend.

If they were in the actual Bake-Off, there would be disapproval. If not from the show, then backlash online. In a charity special he knows that their fans will just eat the shit up as further proof of his and Phil’s undying love.

Mel and Sue drift over to Phil, who hunches over at the attention, ducking his head and shrugging and Dan thinks that if he’s in love with any version of Phil, it’s this one. The guy who pretends that anything he does, no matter how monumental or sweet, is just par for the course. 

But now that he has the icing he dives back into the challenge. Food coloring and piping bags, tasting the cookie that broke and hoping Mary and Paul forgot how to count. He’s making stars, black and white striped stars. They drip a little but he plates it nicely on one of the black slabs he’s always admired and sticks a finger in the bowl.

Paul sticks a finger in, too. “Lots of orange in there, Dan.”

“That’s what I’m going for.” He’d cut the orange flavor in the cookie with cinnamon and just hopes it’s not too overpowering. His other option was to liquor Mary Berry up, but Phil had vetoed that as soon as Dan had brought it up.

Paul just raises his eyebrows and sidles away.

“One minute left, everyone. One minute!”

The last minute is not as harried as it looks on television with the magic of editing. Alfie is wiping down the crumbs from his station and Zoe is perched on a stool, not a hair out of place. Phil’s cookies have only a thin layer of icing and it…well, they’re a little messy, and a little darker than one might expect from shortbread but Dan knows if Phil made them at home, they would be devoured by the end of the evening.

Dan scoots his plate to the edge of his station, stretches again, and stands, waiting.

“It’ll be a while yet,” one of the cameramen tells him. “You should sit down. We need to reset a couple of cameras and lights.”

“I’m okay standing,” Dan assures him. He doesn’t say that if he sits down he’s not sure he’ll get up. He has a tendency to fall like a downed tree if he sits after standing for so long, which is embarrassing enough at home and would be humiliating here.

The cameraman shrugs, eyeing the shortbread. “What’s your flavors?”

“Orange and some other stuff.”

“You sound like me,” the cameraman says. “Been working on this program three-four years now and still don’t know crap about cooking. I always say to the other techs, I say we should have our own bake off. See if anyone absorbed anything. Mostly we eat what they bake.”

“Tough life.”

The cameraman takes the other half of the broken cookie and walks away.

Alfie is chatting to Zoe about her Alfie, who is in town, taking the tour through the old manor house and filming something with his friends. “So not only are you the only non-YouTuber, you have the same name as my boyfriend and I have to let you know,” she leans forward a little, a stage whisper. Zoe could capture a room. Everyone was staring at her. “We’re, like, a really cute couple.”

“Everyone ships them,” Phil says, loyally.

“OTP material,” Dan chimes in. “But don’t worry, Alfie Number Two. You guys could be brothers.”

Alfie smiles, blinding against his dark skin. Few people on earth looked less like Alfie Deyes than Alfie Enoch. “I’m sure I’ll be reading all about it.” He looked at Zoe’s counter, where her flowers were arranged artfully on some fake grass. “I think you’re a ringer, by the way.”

Zoe blushes, and Alfie fills her silence with some gossip about the actors he’s working with on the West End. It’s entertaining enough that Zoe’s eyes are wide, and Dan takes the opportunity to turn to Phil. “Thanks for the icing.”

“I can’t believe you forgot to make it. I’m never going to let you forget it.”

“I guess I deserve that. It’s tasty. I added orange.”

“It’s thin,” Phil shrugs. “I’m glad, though. Not that you forgot your icing. I just think this was our mistake, you know? Like, the bad mojo already happened. We’re free and clear.”

“So I could just juggle these knives?”

“Light ourselves on fire.” Phil’s absently rolling his shoulders. Dan, like he’s done so many times before, begins to knead out the knots. They really are too tall for most of England to accommodate them comfortably, and back rubs are a frequent occurrence after long days.

Phil leans into it. “Thanks.” He cracks open one eye. “Have you sat down at all?”

“I’ll sit when I’m dead.”

Phil looks like he wants to say something about that, but instead jut reaches behind him for a water bottle. “I think we’re about to start. Stay hydrated.”

When Mary and Paul come around, Dan tries to keep a straight face as he presents his bake. “Interesting,” Mary says, “this tastes almost exactly like the icing Phil gave us.”

“Plus some orange,” Dan says, smiling in what he hopes is a winning way.

“Plus some orange,” Mary concedes.

“Improper procuration of icing aside,” Paul begins, shortbread in hand. “This is a really splendid shortbread. Just the right amount of orange without being overwhelming. And the decoration is consistent and pretty without being over the top. Well done, Dan.”

Mary shakes her head, but she eats the whole piece of shortbread. “I’ll be keeping an eye on you, young man.”

After the first challenge, Zoe’s clearly at the top, her flowers pronounced tasty, beautiful, and completely made by her. Phil, Alfie, and Dan all lag somewhere behind. Dan for his unethical icing, Phil for his sloppy and incomplete decoration, and Alfie for his slightly burnt shortbread. But none of their bakes are considered inedible, and no cookie gets spit on the floor, so Dan decides it’s really a win in his book.

They’re ushered outside for tea while the tent is being set up for the technical challenge, the one they all agree they’re looking forward to the least. “I’m afraid that we’ll be told to, like, make crème donuts, and the instructions we get will say just ‘make crème donuts.’” Phil says to their small group.

It’s a real possibility, and they all nod along with him. “I just don’t want to make bread,” Alfie says, rubbing the back of his neck—Dan’s actually worried about the back of his neck. “Any time I try to use yeast, it dies. I feel like a murderer.”

“Now you’ve done it,” Dan moans. He had been hoping to avoid bread, too, but when they file back into the tent he realizes that Alfie did indeed jinx it. They’re making:

“Bread. Challah bread,” Sue declares once the Mary and Paul leave the tent. “This bread should be soft on the inside with a beautifully crisp crust. Remember that challah must be braided in order to give it that signature shape.”

“You will have three hours,” Mel jumps in. “Remember Paul’s advice: take your time. Ready?”

“Not really,” Zoe mutters. Dan doesn’t know what she’s worried about. Her hair is in a perfect four-part braid. This will be easy for her.

“Set? Go!”

Back with Mary and Paul, Paul is explaining that the bread really wasn’t all that difficult except for the braid. “It has to be a tight braid, and look here at the ends. Tucked in and underneath. It’s what gives the loaf its shape. Without the braid, the rest of the bake will—literally—fall apart.”

“I’ve got some test pieces,” Alfie says, rolling out the strands with long fingers. It looks like Play-Doh. “And I think I’ve got the motion.”

“It’s bring the first one all the way over, then number six back to—one? No wait, but what about the middle?” Phil tentatively braids the middle by itself. “No, that’s not right. It’s not my fault! I never had a sister to braid.”

“Or a girlfriend,” Mel winks. Phil hunches his shoulders again. He looks like he’s about to just kneel, he’s so bent over. He could probably get on his knees and still reach the counter.

Dan has a piece of paper and is sketching it out. “One to six, six to two? I’ve got it, I swear.”

Zoe, as predicted, already knows the six-strand pattern. “Well, I know a pattern. The problem with this one is that it always lists a little to the left, so you constantly need to re-shape it.”

“What’s the secret, Zoe?” Sue asks, watching the girl’s deft fingers.

“Well, what I’m doing is over-two, under-one, over-two. You just keep working from the left, you see. And it’s exactly what it sounds like.” She raises her voice. They may have all decided to cheat. They also may have had a few drinks at lunch. “Over-two, under-one, over-two.”

“Did you get that, boys?” Sue asks the tent.

Mel, standing next to Dan, shakes her head. “The handsomest and most devious group we’ve ever had.”

There’s a close call with Phil and a knife and Alfie almost forgets to turn on his oven again and Zoe always seems to just be waiting with her tea, chatting to Mel and Sue about life in Brighton. Dan, on the other hand, seems perpetually busy. Only he and Alfie have opted for an egg wash, and he’s not really sure what an egg wash is. He beats an egg and puts it on top.

It seems to work, because when the time is up and their breads are baked, Dan and Alfie’s have a shine to them that the other two are missing.

“It is a nice color,” Phil says, wandering over. Because of course he wanders over. “But I’m pretty sure that’s not a six-part braid.”

Even with Zoe’s hint Dan had given up, afraid of running out of time, and just did a simple three-part plait, end over end. He’d ended up with a longer loaf that didn’t have the same quality as some of the others.

Phil had done a passable four-part braid. It’s straighter than Zoe’s, but his crust is more burnt than brown.

Dan looks at each contestant’s bread, then shrugs. “Honestly, I’d probably eat all of them.”

“Same,” Phil says. “Just need some good butter.”

Dan leans his head, briefly, on Phil’s shoulder. They’d had meetings in London the day before and hadn’t been able to leave for the competition until early in the morning. They’d been up and anxious for twelve hours already, a night of socializing and drinking ahead. He closes his eyes.

“Cameras,” Phil whispers, and Dan reluctantly straightens up. The camera nearest to them was pointedly turned away.

The blind judging is easier to take than having the comments said to their face. Zoe’s the only one who managed the six-part braid but since she forgot the egg wash it’s Alfie, with a beautifully soft four-braid challah loaf, that takes first. Zoe’s in second, and Dan’s crust just beats out Phil’s for third.

For the cut-away scene, a producer asks Phil how he feels about coming in fourth. “I didn’t think I’d come first,” he clarifies, “but dead last is a bit disheartening. But really I’ve never baked much bread, so for a first attempt at least it was edible.”

“Do you think it’s anyone’s game tomorrow?” Another producer asks Dan.

“No,”Dan says bluntly, with a laugh. “I think Zoe’s going to win, but I’m probably biased. Alfie’s bread did look really good, so who knows. One of them.”

“Not you? Or Phil?”

Dan laughs again. “Really, though. Have you seen our meringues?”

Zoe and her boyfriend Alfie (not to be confused with the other Alfie) have dinner reservations at a tiny French restaurant in the tiny town, but Dan, Phil, and other Alfie join them for drinks beforehand.

“So how is it?” Alfie Deyes asks. It has been voted on by the group that he will be A1, having known everyone the longest, and they decide on Actor Alfie for their drinking companion, after Black Alfie was suggested (by Actor Alfie) and dismissed for being a little too on the nose for polite company.

“You know we’re not supposed to talk about it,” Zoe says, and, in the same breath, “kind of fun, actually.”

“Because you’re winning.” Dan rolled his eyes at A1.

“You’re cheating,” Zoe retorts, “same thing.”

“Everyone knows that Dan and Phil don’t really count as two different people,” A1 jokes, and they all laugh. It feels good to drink and sit down, feels good to not have to think about grams and teaspoons, to not worry about flavors versus color versus shape. Dan had thought he was prepared for the competition—a little fun, a little charity—but he feels utterly drained.

He and Phil are basically sharing the same chair, the pub a little too crowded to spread out, and Actor Alfie is regarding them with quiet contemplation. Dan steels himself for the question.

“Are you the first couple to compete together?” Alfie asks. Ding ding ding. The inevitable. “I honestly haven’t watched that much Bake Off.”

Zoe breaks off her recap to gasp. “Don’t say that too loud. Bake Off is an institution.”

“I know that now.”

“We’re not a couple,” Dan says at the same time. Phil just takes a long sip of his fruity drink, his hand curling around Dan’s waist. Alfie Number One, who could never stand awkwardness, launches into a loud, funny story about nearly breaking many things on his tour of the manor house.

Actor Alfie is too polite not to sense the sudden change of topic. Phil gets up to get the next round and Actor Alfie leans over to Dan. “Sorry. I just assumed—you’re obviously close.”

“Best friends,” Dan says. Zoe snorts again. She and her Alfie are acting like they’re in the middle of an intense conversation when they’re really just eavesdropping. Dan’s so used to keeping his private life private that even long-time acquaintances like Zoe and Alfie don’t know more than hints and rumors about him and Phil. He clears his throat when Actor Alfie keeps staring at him. “We were together years ago but…this is better.”

A1 says something into his beer that sounds a lot like “bullshit.”

Even Actor Alfie looks troubled, but he’s one of those Proper English Gentlemen Dan used to meet a lot in school and apologizes again for misinterpreting the relationship, though when Phil is spotted making his way back through the pub, drinks perched precariously in hand, Actor Alfie leans over for the final time and says, “You guys have crazy chemistry.”

And that’s the last that Dan and Phil as a single entity are brought up for the night. They talk about moving and moving boxes and Alfie and Zoe’s failed attempts at dance lessons and Dan and Phil’s old attempts at baking (we’ve gotten better!) and Actor Alfie does his obligatory duty of talking about Harry Potter.

“So are you really a Gryffindor?” Zoe asks, then shakes her head at herself. “You must get that all the time.”

“It’s okay, I don’t mind.” Actor Alfie drinks beer but mostly nurses it, and it makes his smile quicker. “I think I’m sort of in between Gryffindor and Hufflepuff.” He bites his lip. “I’m pretty good at sorting other people, though.”

He nods to Dan and Phil. “The classic Slytherin-Hufflepuff relationship.” Dan and Phil high-five.

“And you two are…what? Ravenclaw and Gryffindor?” He shrugs. “All Alfies are in Gryffindor.”

“Sweet!” Alife Deyes knocks his beer against Actor Alfie’s and in some show of masculinity that neither Dan nor Phil could follow, both boys chugged their beers to nothingness.

A little while later, Zoe and Alfie have reservations to get to. Actor Alfie’s sticking around the pub. “I have some lines to learn, and pints usually help,” he claims, though there’s a couple girls at the bar that have been glancing at them all night.

Dan and Phil say their goodbyes and begin to make their way back to the hotel. It’s late but the town is small and the hotel looms large and it though the air is brisk it feels nice to be walking under the refurbished lamp light and the stars.

“One more challenge,” Phil says, tipping his head back. “I am so glad we’re here.”

In the dim light something in him glows, and Dan feels a lump catch in his throat, the flicker of a familiar stomach flip. He remembers, vividly, all the reasons they’d broken up all those years ago, but lately, some days, those reasons seem childish, worth revisiting. He’d never thought they’d be able to emerge from the wreckage of their relationship as friends and here they are, nearly ten years down the line, bumping along next to each other in the middle of nowhere.

“It’s beautiful,” Phil says, one finger tracing a constellation in the sky.

Dan cannot pull his eyes away. “Yeah,” he says, not bothering to look up. “It is.”


	2. Day Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dan pines, Phil maims himself, and there is a kiss in the woods.

Even though they were put up in separate rooms for the weekend, they’d fallen asleep in Phil’s bed while catching up on their backlogs of anime. Dan was above the covers the night before, but when he wakes up Phil’s in the bathroom and there’s a blanket thrown over him. He pulls the cover over his head, snakes his arm out for his phone, and pretends he doesn’t have to be anywhere today.

“Are we late yet?” He calls, half to tell Phil that he’s awake and half because it’s Phil who goes places with folders full of their itineraries. During their tour in the summertime it was Phil who could name not only the city they were going to next but what country they’d be in on any given day. Dan just sort of goes where Phil points.

“Luckily it’s basically right outside.” Phil leans out of the bathroom, hairbrush in hand.

Dan reluctantly folds back the covers. “Glasses day?”

“Forgot my extra contacts.”

Dan glances at Phil again, sitting all the way up. “That’s my shirt.”

“You packed ten days’ worth of clothes for a weekend.”

“I like options.” Dan tries to look disapproving and not at all admiring of how simple black and white makes Phil look…handsome. He really doesn’t know why all these feelings are coming back now. They didn’t come on tour, when they were never more than ten feet away from each other. Or at home, where their lives have settled into a comfortable domesticity. Here, when they’re competing on a program they’ve been watching for years.

Phil glances in the mirror to fix his hair. “I’ll find food, you get up?”

There was so much food hanging around the set yesterday that Dan’s not even remotely hungry, but he’s back on a regular regiment of medication for his depression—had been since the beginning of the tour. It had taken a bit of coaxing from both Phil and his therapist to not view it as a backslide. The medication’s doing its job, but tends to make him nauseous if he takes it on an empty stomach.

The fact that Phil knows all this, had probably woken himself up with enough time to find food for Dan, makes him ache with a particular fondness. “Thank you.”

Phil grabs his wallet and room key. “I’m keeping this shirt.”

Dan rolls his eyes and got out of bed, making a mental note that when (if) he or Phil ever move out, his next roommate absolutely could not be the same clothes size. He lost more shirts to Phil than he lost while traveling.

He dresses and packs, hauling their suitcases down to the lobby to be held behind the desk and checking out of the room. They have to be in London tomorrow, and the concierge promises to have the suitcases in a taxi when they get back from the afternoon taping.

Phil’s settled on a couch in the lobby, on the phone. “My mum” he explains, handing Dan an orange, a granola bar, and a frothy Starbucks creation.

“Hi Katherine,” Dan sing-songs.

Phil listens for a few more seconds, then shakes his head, handing the phone to Dan. “She wants to say hi to you.”

He takes the phone in his already overburdened hands. He hadn’t known, nearly a decade ago when he and Phil first began to intertwine their lives, that there’d be so many special bonus features. Phil’s older brother adopting Dan as a second person to keep an eye on, Phil’s mother asking after him, sending him food, cupping his cheek when he accompanies Phil home. Making him feel welcome. Like he has another family, waiting for him, if he ever needs it. “Hi,” he says to Phil’s mum, testing how hot the drink is. It’s warm and sweet and he takes a long sip. “Good morning.”

“I just wanted to wish both of you luck.” It sounds like Phil’s mother is doing the dishes, and Dan feels that pang that had plagued him on tour whenever he was reminded that other people were continuing with their lives even when he was away.

“Thanks! Believe me, we’ll need it.”

“Just do your best,” Katherine says. “When will I get to watch it? Do I have to wait until next week?”

Phil, hovering nearby, takes the phone back. “I told you, Mum, the episode’s not coming out until Christmastime.”

“But you’ll tell me what happened, won’t you?”

Dan sits at the small coffee table, ripping open the granola bar and checking his own messages. His mother had texted him early, all exclamation points and emojis, and Dan sends her some emojis back.

“Take your pills?” Phil asks once he’s hung up.

Dan nods. Phil peels the orange and hands him half. It’s slippery and way too juicy to be eating on the plush couches of the hotel lobby. Without saying a word, they both pocket their phones and head out into the weak sunshine.

It’s still early, most of the town still asleep. Phil throws his head back and, despite his careful administrations this morning, a strand of hair breaks loose. Dan fixes it without thinking. “Do you prefer this to London?” he asks, running a hand through his own curls. “The quiet?”

“Dunno. They’re good for different things, I guess.”

“Diplomatic but unhelpful.”

“I’d live here to raise a family. But London’s good for friends. I feel like once you move someplace like this you sort of get trapped.” Phil takes a hearty sip of his own coffee. “But after traveling so much…” he shrugs. “I like the quiet.”

Dan can picture it, how Phil would get involved in the Parent Association. Maybe even try to have a garden. How he’d edit videos from a sunny study and bake and learn how to grill. And he felt the familiar swoop, the tight feeling in his stomach he always felt whenever either of them talked about the ambiguous future. Up until now it had always been assumed that they’d go through it all together, the moving and the new apartments, the new jobs and the tour. But they and their friends were getting to that age when people began settling down for real, and he and Phil were stuck in the same holding pattern they’d always been in.

He can picture Phil with a little house near a bookstore, the castle looming on the big hill. He just also pictures—hopes—that he, Dan, will be beside him.

Dan nudges Phil with his hip, enough to make him spill the drink but not enough to get any on his shirt. Phil throws an orange slice at him just as they walked up to the front room where the Bake Off was staged.

“Food fight already?” Zoe asks. She’s reapplying lipstick with the help of a compact mirror.

“Morning to you too,” Dan says. He offers Zoe the other half of his granola. She doesn’t take it but Actor Alfie does, washing it down with coffee. As expected, there’s quite a spread of breakfast foods waiting for them but being back at the manor makes Dan feel the nerves he’s avoided all morning.

He isn’t particularly worried about the bake of the showstopper—he knows their task will be to build a massive layer cake themed around their “greatest accomplishment.” It’s the other angle that’s harder to grasp early in the morning. Being funny and likable and humble and kind, the part of show business that came easily to Phil, and was just a little less intuitive for Dan.

Everything’s mostly set up today and they film getting into the tent and then wait around as the cameras are re-set. Mel and Sue wander to the back, where Dan’s standing next to Phil, talking about the possibilities for their greatest accomplishment. “The problem,” Phil tells Mel and Sue as they approach, “is that for the last ten years or so we’ve done everything together.”

“We have separate channels,” Dan explains, “but our, you know, stuff, our brand, is—ours. It’s each other.”

“I know what that feels like,” Sue says, glancing at her partner. “To be young again.”

“Living in each other’s pockets.”

“Exactly.” Dan loves talking to other people who’ve made their lives as a pair. They’re the only people who really understand what he and Phil are doing. Supposed to be doing, if he can get those butterflies in his stomach under control.

Phil’s explaining their final vision, to take the same experience and make its photo negative. They decided that their “greatest accomplishment” was the book (mostly for its tangible, recognizable form). They’d each make a four-layer cake, the last layer representing the book with Dan and Phil standing on top, looking into the pages. Phil would do his cake in summerly flavors—vanilla, orange, lemon, lavender—and decorate in color, while Dan would be doing richer, darker flavors—chocolate, hazelnut, and coffee—and decorate in black and white.

The result should be the same cake two different ways. Their intertwined lives through two different lenses. Phil had come up with the concept and Dan was excited to try to pull it off.

Mel and Sue agree that they’ll be interested to see how it all turns out. “I just wish I was a good baker,” Phil says. “Good ideas mean nothing if the execution is off.”

“Take it one step at a time,” Mel advises. “As my mother always said: measure twice, bake once.”

Dan turns back to his bake, taking a step back to try to find a bowl he’d put back. He nearly knocks over a running PA. He’d suspected, when watching the show from the comfort of his own living room, that there was more chaos than depicted on the sanitized hour-long program, but he wasn’t quite ready for the anarchy that is the baking tent. There’s the four of them, of course, the bakers, and the two hosts and two judges, but there’s also assistants, testers, producers, tasters, camera-lights-sound guys, people with clipboards, someone keeping an eye on the weather, and a scurrying intern whose sole job, it seems, is to bring tea.

It’s overwhelming, and the time constraint is more pressure than Dan had anticipated. He’s used to his leisurely, two am baking with Phil, playlist on in the background, frequent breaks whenever they get distracted or bored. Sometimes one recipe takes a whole day. Other times they eat the batter before it gets in the oven.

He doesn’t realize until he’s in the thick of the third challenge on the Bake Off that he’s never really liked baking, not truly. He likes food, and he likes Phil’s company, and the kitchen was a place where he was guaranteed both. Baking’s a byproduct of his life’s ambitions. To always be surrounded by food and an arm’s length from Phil.

He can’t help but keep an eye on Phil. He tells himself and anyone who notices that it’s because they’re making, essentially, the same cake in mirror images, and he needs the reference, but really it’s that he loves Phil in situations like this, when he can observe as if from the viewpoint of a stranger. How for all Phil’s professed clumsiness he’s also organized and methodical, timing out every part of his creation. How he licks the spoon and spills some batter but also laughs at the cloud of flour around Zoe and helps Alfie when he needs another pair of hands on an especially large portion of the Gryffindor banner. How when Phil goes to chop the stems off some lavender he’s overenthusiastic and cuts off the tip of a thumb.

Cuts—

Suddenly there’s blood everywhere, and Phil just lets out a disappointed groan. It’s Paul Hollywood, close by at the time of the cut, who grabs Phil’s hand and moves the knife deftly out of the way, holding Phil’s hand above his head while putting pressure on the…

Dan blinks. Phil’s workstation is still speckled with blood.

“Oh my god!” Zoe covers her mouth. Actor Alfie just looks away.

There’s a collective intake of breath as it seems like the entire tent is just staring at Phil and Paul’s joined hands and the blood cascading between them. And then: a leap into action.

Dan makes a sound like a wounded bird, clucking his way over to Phil, who is being guided into a chair by Paul Hollywood and about a dozen people with clipboards, all shouting about A & E and doctors and stitches.

There is an awful lot of blood.

Dan swallows the fear that bubbles helplessly in his chest. Phil’s face is ashen. Though he looks more surprised than anything else, the corners of his eyes and mouth are tight with pain. “Drama queen,” Dan says, elbowing his way over to Phil.

“I’m fine, mum.”

“Jesus Christ, Phil.” Dan had been lectured on cursing but can’t keep the emotion back. He feels like he’s going to vibrate out of his skin. “That’s a lot of blood.”

Alfie and Zoe come over, too, but they’re blocked behind a crowd of handlers, a nurse, a camera man trying to get it all on film. “Hold your hand up,” Paul says with the forceful urgency of an uncle who always knows best. “And hold tight to that flannel. You’re alright.”

Dan has to bite his tongue. He always feels useless in the face of other people’s pain, but with Phil he knows his protective instinct is hopelessly skewed. He wants to growl that Phil is most certainly not alright, that a tip of his finger had been left, abandoned, on the counter, that the blood is getting on his black jeans and on…

“I knew you shouldn’t have worn my shirt.” The white fabric is a lost cause.

“I’ll buy you a new one.”

The nurse finally gets to the front of the crowd. He’s a young Indian guy with a lot of black hair. “Are you feeling faint?”

“No, I just feel stupid.” Phil looks at the crowd gathered around him. It does look a bit like he’s on his deathbed. “Is the timer still running?”

“Extenuating circumstances,” Mary Berry says. She’s a lot calmer than Dan suspected she would be. He wonders how many kitchen accidents their hosts have seen over the years.

The nurse peels the flannel off and everyone winces, though no one more than Phil, who is studiously looking away from his own hand. “You didn’t take off any of the nail, and there’s still a flap of skin. You ever have stitches?”

“No,” Phil says.

“You’re about to. First time for everything.” The nurse claps Phil on the back. “I have an ambulance on the way. Sterile environment, you know. We can do it there, but I would really like to get you to the A&E. You’ll need a tetanus shot.” He looks around the tent as if noticing the competition for the first time and adds, “I wouldn’t recommend cooking or anything for at least a week.”

Dan nods. He was expecting this. “Can he see the end of the competition, at least?”

“As a bystander? Sure, why not. After the A&E though. Come on, mate. Boy, you’re tall. You don’t feel faint, right? You sure? Cuz if you fall I don’t know if I can catch you, mate.”

Zoe and Alfie squeeze Phil and wish him luck, melting away to their stations.

Dan glances back at his cake and then out the door. His pained look must attract attention because a small hand lands on his shoulder and Mary Berry leans close, her voice pitched especially low so as not to be picked up by the nearby cameras. “Go walk him to the ambulance. We’ll make sure there’s enough time left.” She pats him and Dan feels like he’s getting a benediction from his grandmother. “Just come on back.”

“Thank you,” Dan says, not caring, today, if someone has seen him and Phil revolve around each other and gotten the wrong idea. Phil may not be his boyfriend, but he was unquestionably, openly his best friend, and Dan thinks he’s justified in tearing out of the tent and across the lawn, catching up to Phil and the nurse hobbling along the path.

“Dan! Go bake!” Is Dan imagining it or is Phil paler than usual? He feels his heart pounding in his throat, choking on the fear he’s been feeling since he saw the blood on the end of the knife.

“I have time,” Dan shrugs, as if they’re not in the middle of the very competition they’ve always adored. “Just have to be the center of attention, don’t you?”

Phil’s eyes don’t quite focus. There’s blood on the sidewalk and the nurse curses softly under his breath, speeding them along. “You know,” Phil says, “I knew I wasn’t going to win. But I sort of thought, when I was making the cake today, that I might…” Phil shrugs. He looks disappointed, which is better than the pain that was tugging at his features.

“I’ll finish for you,” Dan promises.

Phil looks like he wants to protest, but bites it back. “Thank you. You don’t have to but--”

“Look, mate,” the nurse says to Dan. “I really want to get your partner to the A&E. He needs some fluids, and I don’t like the look of his complexion.”

“Hey,” Phil protests softly.

Dan nods, looking over his shoulder. There’s a camera right behind him. He should have expected that. Still, he punches Phil on the shoulder very, very gently. “Don’t die.”

“I’ll try, mother.”

“Text when…you know. Just text, okay? Let me know what’s happening.” Dan swallows. “Do you want me to come with you?”

“You have some baking to do.” Phil’s blinking hard. The ambulance is in sight now. “Dunno if I can text with only nine fingers.”

“Nine and a half, don’t exaggerate.”

The flannel is a rusty red when Phil glances at the camera behind Dan as if noticing it for the first time. “I really thought I could win. Maybe. I would have liked to try.”

“I’ll buy you a million cakes, just go.” And before Dan could say anything else, or do what he really wants to do, latch onto Phil like a koala and never let go. He spins on his heel. And stalks back across the grounds.

Before he re-enters the tent he’s intercepted by Mel and Sue who are fast becoming his favorite hosts. “Everything all right Dan?”

“Fine!” He plasters on a smile.

“Do you want to splash some water on your face?”

Dan thinks about it, but shakes his head. “Won’t help. I think I just—yeah. Need to finish this up, you know?” He glances at the camera next to him. “Is this all going to air?”

“Not all of it,” Sue hedges.

Dan nods. He understands that, while his heart is still pounding somewhere around the back of his throat, this all makes good television. Blood sells. Or something. He knows that Phil is probably more embarrassed than hurt but he still feels like he’s abandoning his friend by walking into the tent and squaring his shoulders as if nothing has happened.

Something has happened, though. While Dan was gone, both Actor Alfie and Zoe ended up behind Phil’s station.

“You guys have so much work to do!” Dan protests. They’re finishing Phil’s cake. Zoe is baking the icing and Actor Alfie is sticking in dowels for the cake to stay together. “Shoo! Back to your own cakes!”

“Between the three of us we can finish Phil’s,” Actor Alfie says, determined. “It’s bad luck what happened, and I think your cakes will be really cool. But you have to finish yours, Dan.”

“What rule-breakers!” Mel protests. “I feel like the bakers are staging a coup!” But even as she spoke she picked up a spatula and, with a glance at the camera, began spooning some white icing over the cake.

Dan feels like he should protest more. He watches, dumbly, as everyone in the kitchen pitched in to make Phil’s cake a reality. Zoe, after she finishes the last of the icing, wipes her hands on her apron before stepping over to Dan and giving him a long, tight hug.

“I texted Alfie. He’s going to meet Phil at the hospital.”

Dan hadn’t even thought of that. He squeezes Zoe back, hard. They’re not particularly close, but Dan finds himself immensely grateful for her kindness and foresight. “Thank you. That—I’m glad.”

Zoe holds on a few seconds longer. Dan feels the lenses of five different cameras and gently disentangles himself, going over to his own cake, taking a deep breath, and trying to figure out where to begin again.

The remaining two hours go by quickly. Phil texts Dan clumsy emojis and Dan, after special permission, texts back a picture of Phil’s nearly-assembled cake, which Phil responds to with exclamation marks, smiley faces, balloons. Dan’s own cake tastes fairly bland despite the massive amounts of coffee Dan was fairly certain he remembered to add, but his frosting turns out all right and the decoration is easy enough. He’s supposed to sculpt both him and Phil from modeling chocolate, but, pressed for time, he makes a Dan in black and white for his cake, and a Phil is resplendent color for Phil’s cake.

It’s Actor Alfie who does most of the work on Phil’s cake, and it looks—though he’ll never tell Phil—about a dozen times better than it would have if Phil was left to his own devices. Dan goes over to put the Phil model on top and touches Actor Alfie’s shoulder. “Thanks a lot. Really. I know Phil would appreciate it. And if doesn’t because he’s on drugs, I appreciate it.”

“My cake was fairly straightforward,” Actor Alfie says. It is straightforward, a simple sheet of layer cake, but it’s obvious that Alfie’s talent lies in decorating. The simple rectangle is one of the most Harry Potter positive things Dan has ever seen, and Phil’s cake is practically vibrating with color.

Phil’s not back by the time the judging starts—he texts that he has to wait to see if he has any negative reactions to the general anesthesia—and Dan feels like he’s missing a limb. He keeps looking over to Phil’s work station, craning to see the entrance of the tent, certain that, despite all odds, Phil will arrive in time for the judging.

But the judging begins without him.

“Today, four contestants implored you to give to charity,” Sue begins. “And one of our contestants has taken that call very seriously, giving blood and sweat, but mostly blood, to our competition. Now, we are down to three contestants, though we do miraculously have four cakes—more on that later. Ms. Zoe, can you please move your cake to the judging area?”

Zoe went entirely 3D, making a camera stand and herself, carved, smiling, make up on. Everything is beautiful, looking more like a sculpture than a cake. When Dan sees it, he knows that any hopes he had of winning the day have disappeared.

Her bake is pronounced to be perfect, and Dan and Actor Alfie clap hard as Zoe, blushing, backs towards her station. Actor Alfie is told that a rectangle is boring but his artistic skills are superb. Dan is informed that it was a good idea, but the judges can’t taste anything—not chocolate, not coffee, nothing.

Dan nods. He’d thought as much, though he also, privately thinks his decoration isn’t all that impressive. His mind had been elsewhere. On Phil across town. On the blood that had been cleared up so quickly.

After Dan leaves with his cake, Paul and Mary look at each other. “It seems we have an extra cake, Mary.”

“Appeared out of thin air,” Mary Berry agrees.

Mel and Sue are already getting ready to lift the cake over to the judging area, but they suddenly back away. Dan’s grinning at their accomplishment, but when the tent flap opens his grin gets even wider, and, roaring, he practically tackles Phil before he can even get back in the tent.

“You liar!” Dan protests, smiling. “You said you were at the hospital!”

“I was,” Phil says. He holds up a bandaged finger. “Literal battle scar.”

“Impressive, without a literal battle.”

Paul Hollywood clears his throat and Dan steps to the side, watching Phil see his cake for the first time.

“Dan!” Phil covers his mouth in shock. “You—you did all this?”

“Everyone helped. Alfie did most.”

Phil starts at the name, nodding at Actor Alfie, who nods back, before turning to Zoe. “Thanks for letting me borrow your Alfie.”

“Did he steal those plastic gloves?” Zoe asks.

“He did.”

Zoe’s smile is happy, blinding, and Dan realizes that he feels light, too. That he’d been knocked off center since Phil left the tent, and now it feels like everything is righted again. He bumps Phil with his elbow, who bumps him back.

“You okay?” Dan asks.

Phil bites his lip. There’s still cameras. This is still part of the show. “Ask me later.”

It’s Phil who brings his own cake up to the front, thanking everyone multiple times and admitting, of course, that none of the work was his, that he came up with the idea and then cleverly cut his own finger so Alfie, with the superior skills, would have to take over.

“I see,” Paul Hollywood nods. “This was all part of the plan.”

“Exactly!”

There’s a short break while the judges go to talk about them behind their backs, and the four contestants wander outside to a picnic area. Dan wonders where the sheep are that he always sees on television. They’re being pestered by a persistant duck.

“I don’t know what happened,” Phil says in answer to Actor Alfie’s question. “I was just chopping my, you know, flower, and my hand slipped. I saw it just a split second before it happened but…” He shudders. Shrugs. “Could have been worse.”

“With Phil, it could always be worse,” Dan adds. He squeezes Phil’s leg under the table.

Zoe is saying something, but Dan’s just looking at Phil, across the table, mouthing at him: _I’m fine._

_You scared me_. Dan mouths back. Doesn’t know if Phil will understand what he’s saying but it doesn’t matter. He needs to get it out there in the world. Phil had scared him, even though it wasn’t a mortal wound. It was the fear of looking over and seeing blood. The helplessness of being unable to do anything, to take the pain away, to be by his side in a strange hospital far from home. And the swift and sure knowledge, in the face of it all: Phil’s hurt. I love him. And he’s hurt.

Mel and Sue come by and they’re holding wine bottles by the neck and exclaiming over war wounds and it’s enough of a distraction for Dan to be able to slip away behind the trees, around the small pond. He just needs to stretch his legs, needs to think, needs to take in this new knowledge. Phil is all right, and Dan is in love with him, and everything, of course, had to happen today.

“Dan?”

Phil steps out from behind a tree. Dan waits, but no camera appears behind him. They’re in the middle of a small rings of fir trees, the lake in the distance, the tent at the bottom of the hill.

Phil steps forward with the wariness of a man approaching a skittish deer. “Are you okay? Did something happen?”

“These are questions for you, Philly.”

“Dan…”

“I’m fine,” Dan doesn’t snap it out. He plasters a smile on his face. He’s been in love with Phil before and he’s sure he’ll be in love with Phil again and out there in a different clearing Zoe is kissing her boyfriend in front of everyone but there’s years of tension and history here and Dan just doesn’t think it would work, could not possibly risk what he has with Phil, lazy evenings with anime and texting about pizza, easy banter, their life. He wouldn’t risk it for anything. Even love.

Phil’s closer now. Dan doesn’t know when that happened. The competition seems far away. Everything seems far away in comparison to the way Phil’s standing, angled towards him.

“Alfie was great, at the hospital,” Phil says. “I was fine. But.” He grins that open, honest grin that is so Phil that Dan’s heart twists. “He wasn’t you.”

“I wanted to be there.”

“That’s not really what I mean.”

Suddenly there’s no distance at all between them. Phil tilts his head, just a little, and Dan knows these steps, knows how to lean forward just a little and graze Phil’s lips with his own, the smallest of kisses.

Then Phil’s bandaged hand wraps around Dan’s shoulders and Dan is pulled close and their mouths open at the same time and it’s not like being young again, that relationship they’d had in the beginning, all electricity and new meetings. This is the kiss of two people knowing what they’re getting. All the pet peeves and quirks, all their secrets and habits laid out to bear, and they choose each other anyway.

Dan thinks, as Phil’s hand presses into the small of his back:

_Thank you._

_Finally._

He thinks: _this is better than winning._

It’s better than anything he could have imagined.

In fifteen minutes they will stumble out of the woods flushed, walk steadily side by side back to the tent. They won’t win, but Phil will be presented with an apron anyway, for his earnestness and his loss of blood, and they will hug everyone and eat each other’s cakes and the cameras will be turned off and they will go back to their lives in London, speeding away on a train the same way Dan, as a child, had once sped towards Phil and their lives together.

But that is fifteen minutes in the future. For now Dan leans forward, just a little, mindful of the bandage on his back. For now, Dan thinks: _this_ is _winning._

_This is coming home._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Perhaps the purest fluff I've ever written. Once again for my little sister, who found all the episodes of the Great British Bake Off online for inspiration. And also for Dan and Phil, who we saw in Newark last night. The tour was lovely and loud.

**Author's Note:**

> I know that the judges and hosts of Bake Off have changed in recent years, but I really don't care. Also, once more for my little sister, who only wants cute, fluffy Dan and Phil stories, so I'm adding to that list.


End file.
